• by Shankar Gupta , September 15, 2006

This week, while the gaming community was abuzz over the announced November launch date and price of the Nintendo Wii, rumors surfaced that the Playstation 3 was working with gaming social networking service Xfire on the Playstation Network Platform (PNP), Sony's putative answer to Xbox Live.

As it turned out, according to GameDailyBiz, the deal with Xfire encompasses only a single title, "Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom." Xfire will be providing chat utilities and buddy lists similar to its main offering in the game, which is one of the PS3's launch titles, and the tech will not be used to power the PNP.

This tidbit was tantalizing to game industry watchers because, even so close to its November launch date, Sony has been relatively mum about the online offerings of its PS3 platform, instead touting the Blu-Ray DVD drive, large hard drive and high-tech processor, which drive even the cheapest model's price up to $100 above the Xbox 360, and $250 more than the recently announced Nintendo Wii price point.

What Sony has announced about the PNP came in March, after the release date for the platform was announced. PNP will reportedly allow users to chat and message for free, download games, and play games online--essentially all the main features that the Xbox live offers. One extra is that the PS3 allows game developers to connect their servers directly with the service, something Xbox Live does not allow.

But even with the features that have been announced, it's an open question whether Sony's PNP will meet with the same success that Xbox Live has enjoyed. Sony is relying on its hardware to be a differentiator for its platform, and many analysts agree that, when all the system are released, PS3 will come out marginally on top.

But without a credible online offering to compete with the wildly successful Xbox Live, it's hard to imagine that being the case--so much of today's gaming culture is based around online play. The most popular game in the world, "World of Warcraft," is purely an online game, and in more competitive games, it's hard to find the same challenge playing against AI as it is going head to head against other human beings. A Blu-Ray DVD player is nice, but it's not going to play "Killzone" with me.

And for marketers, online connectivity isn't the big thing, it's the only thing. Without a high percentage of PS3 buyers connecting to Sony's online service, the PS3's usefulness as a marketing and advertising medium is crippled. So here's to hoping that the recent silence about the PNP will be broken with a bang, and not a whimper.